Good Keemun is expensive. Hojo has one that's supposedly superb, but it's like $3/g. He's got a lower quality one as well, maybe worth trying that since he has decent sourcing connections. I enjoy the highest grade that's available on TeaSpring, I think it's under $1/g. If you're in the US, tea trekker has several keemuns, and very reasonable prices. I'd go for the mao feng or gongfu versions, which I prefer to the broken-leaf style.

Expensive is fine when the price is for the actual tea, and not for covering the cost of running a fancy shop. $3/g is well beyond the point of pain however. Thanks for the suggestions, I'm going to try both Tea Spring and Tea Vivre. I'm not in the US, so Tea Trekker is a no-go. I've read that Mao Feng is supposed to be better than Hao Ya, but the ones from Dragon Tea House are oposite in my opinion. Their Mao Feng is very bland, but the "nonpareil" Hao Ya is decent enough. Not amazing, but certainly not horrible, to my taste anyway.

Some seem to prefer Mao Feng over Hao Ya and some the other way around. I suppose the quality of the ones they tried may be a factor there too. Please do update on how they compare when you get and try the new teas.

absence wrote:
Expensive is fine when the price is for the actual tea, and not for covering the cost of running a fancy shop. $3/g is well beyond the point of pain however. Thanks for the suggestions, I'm going to try both Tea Spring and Tea Vivre. I'm not in the US, so Tea Trekker is a no-go. I've read that Mao Feng is supposed to be better than Hao Ya, but the ones from Dragon Tea House are oposite in my opinion. Their Mao Feng is very bland, but the "nonpareil" Hao Ya is decent enough. Not amazing, but certainly not horrible, to my taste anyway.

The TeaVivre Mao Feng looks okay, but probably a bit overpriced. The TeaSpring one I was referring to is the "Xian Zhen".

I quite enjoyed the Gift Grade Qimen Jing Tea Shop. Link if you're interested: http://www.jingteashop.com/pd-jing-tea- ... emn-gg.cfm
I think it may be one of the best Qimen that I've ordered online. They also have other red teas, but I haven't tried any of them except the long out of stock Dancong Red that was phenomenal.

It's been a while, and I've tasted several Keemun samples and made some interesting discoveries.

absence wrote:I've read that Mao Feng is supposed to be better than Hao Ya, but the ones from Dragon Tea House are oposite in my opinion. Their Mao Feng is very bland, but the "nonpareil" Hao Ya is decent enough.

The reason I found the Mao Feng bland is that I brewed it Western style. I had tried to brew Keemun gongfu style several times before, and didn't enjoy it, but it suddenly struck me that I always used Hao Ya for the experiment. When I brew the Mao Feng from DTH gongfu style, it's quite good, if a bit more smoky than ones from Tea Vivre and Tea Spring. My experience so far is that Hao Ya is more suitable for Western brewing, while Mao Feng is more suitable for gongfu brewing. It could explain why there's disagreement about which type is best.

I still think the Xiang Luo from Palais des Thés is very nice, but I realise that it probably deviates too much from the typical taste of Keemun to be considered a high quality Keemun by the discerning part of the tea community. I originally wanted to find a similar tea from another vendor and compare the price to quality ratio, but from the samples I've tasted it's clear that vendors focus on a more traditional Keemun taste. Interestingly, Xiang Luo is apparently just a shaped variant of Mao Feng, and is possibly made more for marketing reasons than for taste. Tea Vivre has both, and they taste much more similar than two Mao Fengs from different vendors.

Now I have. It's actually a Xiang Luo, and completely decent, with a nice balance of typical Keemun flavours. It's lighter than the other samples I had available, but that's to be expected when it's about half the price.

absence wrote:
It's been a while, and I've tasted several Keemun samples and made some interesting discoveries.

absence wrote:I've read that Mao Feng is supposed to be better than Hao Ya, but the ones from Dragon Tea House are oposite in my opinion. Their Mao Feng is very bland, but the "nonpareil" Hao Ya is decent enough.

The reason I found the Mao Feng bland is that I brewed it Western style. I had tried to brew Keemun gongfu style several times before, and didn't enjoy it, but it suddenly struck me that I always used Hao Ya for the experiment. When I brew the Mao Feng from DTH gongfu style, it's quite good, if a bit more smoky than ones from Tea Vivre and Tea Spring. My experience so far is that Hao Ya is more suitable for Western brewing, while Mao Feng is more suitable for gongfu brewing. It could explain why there's disagreement about which type is best.

I still think the Xiang Luo from Palais des Thés is very nice, but I realise that it probably deviates too much from the typical taste of Keemun to be considered a high quality Keemun by the discerning part of the tea community. I originally wanted to find a similar tea from another vendor and compare the price to quality ratio, but from the samples I've tasted it's clear that vendors focus on a more traditional Keemun taste. Interestingly, Xiang Luo is apparently just a shaped variant of Mao Feng, and is possibly made more for marketing reasons than for taste. Tea Vivre has both, and they taste much more similar than two Mao Fengs from different vendors.

Now I have. It's actually a Xiang Luo, and completely decent, with a nice balance of typical Keemun flavours. It's lighter than the other samples I had available, but that's to be expected when it's about half the price.

Mao Feng is perfectly fine for Western-style brewing. Assuming you're using enough leaves, then the problem is a low-quality tea. The traditional chopped style leads to highest-possible oxidation & extraction, which tends to mask the lesser aspects of low-quality leaf.